ByteDance losses triple to more than $7 billion: report

By

Benjamin Fitzgerald

Published
Oct 7, 2022

Chinese-owned TikTok parent ByteDance saw operating losses more than triple last year to more than $7 billion, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Thursday.

According to several financial reports shared internally to employees, ByteDance revealed expenditure equating to billions of dollars on maintaining its surging growth in the last two years, weighed ​down by “tens of billions of dollars in unrealized market losses on convertible securities,” the WSJ said.

The shared financial reports were for 2020 and 2021, as well as the first quarter of 2022, which were obtained by the U.S. newspaper.

The reports did, however, reveal ByteDance clocked an operating profit in the first quarter of 2022, “indicating one of the world’s most valuable startups could be turning a corner after years of incurring large losses,” the WSJ added.

Founded in 2012, ByteDance is a privately held Chinese company which rose to fame for its Douyin short-video site in mainland China, and its TikTok social media video platform across international markets. 

ByteDance shareholders include funds associated with Sequoia Capital China, Softbank, Coatue, General Atlantic and Source Code Capital.

Since its inception, ByteDance has acquired several companies across varying industries including
healthcare, news, gaming and virtual reality. Most recently, the media company invested in VR start-up, Pico, in 2021, for an undisclosed sum.